This summer, Executive Director, Ian Lai, will be hosting eight secondary students at Richmond Food Security for a season of beekeeping! Students will obtain their volunteer hours while learning how to keep bees in community hives, as well as how to make bee products for sale as a part of a social enterprise.
Beekeeping
If you’re out in some City of Richmond parks this season, you might be lucky enough to see Lai in action. With hives in Paulik Park, Garden City Lands, Terra Nova, and soon to be at community gardens, chances are you will see Lai’s colourful honey bee hives around the city.
Honey bee hives align with efforts of the City of Richmond and Richmond Food Security Society towards the 2018-2023 Wellness Strategy (link), the Richmond Food Charter, and the David Suzuki Butterfly Way Project. By increasing visibility and habitat for honey bees and other pollinators, public perception and awareness of their importance is improved. Partial funding for this program comes from the Richmond Community Foundation.
Educating youth about not just the importance of pollinators, but on how to create and maintain a healthy habitat, give back to your community, and build job skills is the motivation for this project.
Turning Honey into Money
The Richmond Food Security Society harvests honey, and beeswax to make bee products to sell as fundraisers. All proceeds go back to the society and the work we do in the community.
Students learn how to take care of the bees, process the bee products, order the other ingredients and packaging for the products, marketing, selling, and balancing a budget and some financial literacy tools.
For more information, please contact us.
